Day 1
A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER) — This guide answers all the foundational questions about OERs and makes a case for why educators should use OERs in their courses. [2011/2015]
Day 2
The OERs – Open Educational Resources — A popular video that defines OERs, emphasizing how OERs democratize learning and ensure equal access to knowledge for learners around the globe. [2012]
Day 3
Open Washington “How to Use Open Educational Resources” Modules — One of the earliest and most accessed modules on OERs, which covers such topics as copyright and licensing; understanding OERs; CC licenses; and finding OERs. [no date]
Day 4
OERu: David Wiley Defines OER — One of the leading pioneers in the use of OERs, David Wiley discusses in this YouTube video what makes OERs different from closed resources, open licensing (Creative Commons), and the power to revise and remix OERs for educational purposes. [2020]
Day 5
A Quick Guide to Open Educational Resources — Infographic on OERs created by Georgia State University.
Day 6
Beyond Access: Using Open Educational Resources to Improve Student Learning — Article from the William + Flora Hewlett Foundation, an early and leading supporter of OERs in the classroom, that emphasizes the need for educators and others to get beyond the issue of access and instead start learning how OERs can be incorporated into course materials to improve student learning outcomes. [2019]
Day 7
OpenEd MOOC Archive — A six-week MOOC on open education and OERs that includes numerous articles and videos that address each week’s topic, including “Why Open Matters”; copyright and the public domain; the 5Rs, CC, and open licensing; and creating, finding, and using OERs. [no date]
Day 8
The 5 R’s of Open — Includes a useful infographic that describes what “open” means in open educational resources.
Day 9
Why Open Education Matters — Highlights how the Creative Commons licensing platform and the internet facilitate sharing of knowledge and overcome the barriers of both print publishing and copyright law. [2012]
Day 10
How to Find Quality Open Educational Resources (OERs) — This article from David Wiley of Lumen Learning provides a basic definition of OERs and discusses ways to align open resources with your courses, where to search and find OERs, and how to evaluate OERs for quality. [2020]
Day 11
Creating and Modifying Open Educational Resources — Tutorial by Affordable Learning Georgia that includes multiple modules on how to create and modify OERs, addressing such topics as platforms and hosting, making OERs accessible, and applying licenses. [2020]
Day 12
CC License Guide — Chapter from an open ebook that provides important information on copyright, how CC licenses work, the different types of CC licenses, and why CC licenses are best for open ebooks. [2017]
Day 13
SPARC’s Open Education Leadership Program — SPARC’s open education/OER tutorial covers such topics as how to find and curate OERs, copyright and open licensing, adapting and publishing OERs, and other modules on both open education and OERs.
Day 14
The State of Open Educational Resources — Interesting infographic that visually captures the current state of OER adoption and development to date.
Day 15
Free Digital Textbooks vs. Purchased Commercial Textbooks — Insider Higher Ed article that reports on the results of a large-scale study of OER adoption at the University of Georgia, which found that students who used free open textbooks performed better than those who used commercial textbooks. [2018]
Day 16
OER Research Toolkit — UMGC resource that guides faculty and others through the process of interacting with the university's digital rights team, conducting basic OER research, and completing the review document. [no date]
Day 17
What Is OER? — YouTube video that provides a faculty perspective of OERs. In addition, it also explains the 5Rs of OERs and Creative Commons licensing. This is a good perspective from faculty on how to engage students in creating OERs and how to find CC-licensed OERs.
Day 18
UMGC OER Quality Guide — A useful form/checklist for assessing the quality of OERs, including such issues as compliance, currency, credibility, engagement, and other factors to consider.
Day 19
The OER Starter Kit — Open ebook publication by Iowa State University that addresses key OER issues, as well as teaching with OERs and creating OERs.
Day 20
Tutorial 1: Finding Free and Open Resources — Helpful tutorial on how to find OERs produced by Affordable Learning Georgia that covers issues of open licensing, Creative Commons, and how to evaluate open resources, in addition to how to find OERs. [no date]
Day 21
Open Educational Resources, Student Efficacy, and User Perceptions: A Synthesis of Research Published between 2015 and 2018 — A study by John Hilton III, one of the foremost researchers of OERs and open education, that concludes that higher ed students who use OERs “achieve the same or better learning outcomes” as those who use commercial textbooks, while saving significant amounts of money. [2019]
Day 22
Open Resources in an Age of Contingency — Sobering article from Inside Higher Ed that highlights the limitations of OER adoption, due mainly to the fact that faculty—especially contingent faculty—lack the time, skills, and resources to effectively adopt, adapt, and integrate OERs in their courses. [2018]
Day 23
Maryland OER Summit – Keynote with Cable Green and David Wiley — Video of Green and Wiley’s keynote address at the 2017 summit, "Advancing Postsecondary Student Success Through OER: A Statewide Summit on Open Educational Resources in Higher Education." [2017]
Day 24
"The More People Understand About OERs . . . the More We All Benefit"— A report on the experience of a University of Michigan-Dearborn professor who published an open textbook on accounting for OpenStax and has been using the textbook in her managerial accounting class at the university for a few semesters. [2019]
Day 25
Do Open Educational Resources Improve Student Learning? Implications of the Access Hypothesis — Frequently cited study by researchers at OpenStax that analyzes the so-called access hypothesis that informs many of the claims that OERs improve student performance. [2019]
Day 26
OER Pros/Cons and Evaluation Methods — Web page from the University of the Pacific that lists some of the pros and cons of OERs, as well as listing key quality factors that faculty and others who adopt OERs should use when evaluating those resources. [no date]
Day 27
How to Search for Open Educational Resources Infographic — Visual representation of how to search for OERs produced by the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning at the University of Texas at Austin. [2014]
Day 28
How to Find and Evaluate OER — YouTube video by Iowa State University Library that offers practical tips for finding and evaluating high-quality OERs for your course. [2017]
Day 29
Adopting Open Educational Resources in the Classroom — Lumen Learning ebook that covers six modules on open education and OERs, such as why open education is important, open licensing, finding OER on the web, how to remix OERs.
Day 30
The Truth (About OER) Is Out There — Despite the fact that there are many resources faculty can access to find high-quality OERs, most instructors still have a hard time adopting OERs in their courses; this article tries to help with that issue and offers a list of the major OER repositories to use when searching for open resources. [2018]
Day 31
Adopting Open Educational Resources Can Help Students, but it takes Time, Money, and Effort — EdSurge article that highlights the time and costs of faculty and others that OER adoption typically requires. [2020]
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